Page 1 of Recordable DVD or Not Recordable DVD - That is the Question.....

Hi techno gods out there.

I wanna break into this DVD-Recordable lark and have a budget of £300.

With this amount, my preferred choice of hardware, the Pioneer 3100 is a little out of my grasp but I can afford the Toshiba DR-1. However, I have read one or two horror stories regarding the Tosh (such as it refusing to write on most discs).

Can anyone point out an alternative to these two, or should I just put up with GBH of the ear from the wife and spend the extra for the Pioneer? I would prefer a DVD-R recorder than DVD+.

One more thing, would it be possible to back-up my discs using the recorder hooked up to my Ariston player which is macrovision disabled?

Any help gratefully received!!

:/

Quote:
One more thing, would it be possible to back-up my discs using the recorder hooked up to my Ariston player which is macrovision disabled?

Should be, so long as you realise that you can`t really do `backups` - all you can do is make recordings from the analogue outputs of your player.

If you want to make true backups of your DVDs, with all of the original content, menus, soundtracks and suchlike, you need a PC DVD writer.

Mike

Quote:
With this amount, my preferred choice of hardware, the Pioneer 3100 is a little out of my grasp

Techtronics are doing R2 models for £308.
I know a budget is a budget, but £8 over it is hardly going to break the bank !
They`re usually far from the cheapest as well.

Hi i have just recently bought a pioneer 3100 and i got this as a multi region dvd from digital-point.co.uk - they delivered next day and i got a free scart as well - all for £308

Thanks for the advice guys.

Lachie - would you let me know how you get on with your 3100??

Ta

Hi

have been using the pioneer 3100 for a few weeks now and it is great - it does everything i was looking for. had a problem with blue bulkpaq drd-rw discs - bought 25 of them and could only get 12 to work. However i have bought very cheap dvd-r (25p each) and they work fine. Havent tried any other dvd-rw yet.

Thats useful to know. Cheers lachie.

The Panasonic DMR-E55 is out now for around £249. You can record on x4 DVD-R discs(59p each) and DVD-RAM discs (£4.99 with caddy & £4.49 without, each from Panasonic)
It can record up to 8hrs on a single disc. It supports progressive scan on both NTSC & PAL. Although DVD-RAM discs are relatively expensive, you can rewrite them 100,000 times. The time-slip feature which allows you to watch one program while recording another is a feature that you will not want to be without once you`ve experienced it. The E55 replaces the E50. The E50 was awarded the coveted Which Magazine best buy award in the DVD Recorder section.

As long as you buy good media (like Verbatim, Zero Defex, Ritek), you should never end up with any coasters. If your machine likes Bulkpaqs or similar B Grades, then you`re laughing. Buy decent discs for important jobs and the cheapos for stuff that isn`t a tragedy if it comes up "disc error".

You should never even consider backing up a DVD by hooking up a player to a recorder. Not only isn`t it legal (disclaimer), you`re making a digital-analogue-digital copy like taping from video to video. You won`t get any of the DVD functionality and the quality won`t be anything like the original.

J Mark Oates

I am now in the market for a DVD recorder, I have held off but my VCR picture quality is making me cringe!!

I have read lots of reviews on the net and Pioneer / Panasonic are being rated quite high. I am a bit of a techie but would prefer to hear from first hand experience from anyone who can recommend a good model and the one`s to avoid (I won`t touch Philips as a mate has one and it has stopped reading pre recorded DVD`s and that appears to be a common fault).

Am looking for one up to £500.00

Thanks guys